{"id":11232,"date":"2012-01-20T06:30:49","date_gmt":"2012-01-19T17:30:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=11232"},"modified":"2012-01-20T08:43:37","modified_gmt":"2012-01-19T19:43:37","slug":"the-heir-of-night-mass-market-edition-out-in-the-uk-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2012\/01\/20\/the-heir-of-night-mass-market-edition-out-in-the-uk-today\/","title":{"rendered":"“The Heir of Night”–Mass Market Edition Out In The UK Today"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Yup, it's mass market edition time in the UK!<\/p><\/div>\n

The mass market edition of The Heir of Night<\/em>, The Wall of Night Book One<\/strong>, complete with the awesome new cover (featured left) is officially ‘out’ in the UK today–and with publication of\u00a0 The Gathering of the Lost,<\/em><\/strong> The Wall of Night Book Two<\/strong>, just three months away, this feels like an incredibly exciting ‘place\/space’ for the series to be in.<\/p>\n

There’s a launch post up on the Orbit blog today,\u00a0 here<\/strong><\/a>, but I also want to celebrate on my own blog, so I thought I’d talk a little bit about some of the key elements behind The Heir of Night<\/strong><\/em> (and Wall of Night<\/strong><\/a> series) story.<\/p>\n

Enjoy!<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

About The Heir of Night<\/strong><\/em> <\/strong><\/em>& The Importance of Characters<\/span>:<\/span>
\n<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

When The Heir of Night<\/strong><\/em> was first published in the USA, I had a guest post on John Scalzi\u2019s Whatever<\/a> <\/em>blog, talking about the \u201cBig Idea\u201d<\/strong> behind the book, <\/em>here<\/a>, which centers around how good and evil are often portrayed in fantasy, particularly epic fantasy. \u00a0<\/em>Writing that post got me thinking about how, as an author, a big idea gets to \u201cwork its way out\u201d through your story–a subject I’ve been thinking about again this past week with my guest post on Orbit about The Evolution of Character<\/em><\/a> .”<\/p>\n

The Heir of Night (Heir) <\/em>is unashamedly classic epic fantasy and in terms of big ideas working themselves out it\u2019s definitely all about the characters: who they are, what code of values they subscribe to\u2014and how they behave in relation to those values when the chips are down. So I guess that\u2019s why Heir<\/em> is quite an adventurous story (OK, it\u2019s also because I like<\/em> treks into dangerous territory, sword fights and hunts and battles with demons, to be strictly honest!) as well as being character driven—because it\u2019s only when the going gets tough that the person we all believe<\/em> we are gets tested.<\/p>\n

In this first book in the Wall of Night<\/span> series, the two central characters of Malian, the Heir of Night herself, and Kalan, are both young (a point discussed in “The Evolution of Character”<\/a> post last week), but dark events are thrust upon them. How they deal with that is very much part of the story, so that Malian at the beginning of Part 2, despite her youth, already has a harder edge than the girl in the opening scenes of the book. By the end of Heir<\/em>, she is presented with a request, and how she responds, based on the values she adheres to\u2014or doesn\u2019t\u2014 will cast its shadow over the play of events in Books 2 to 4 of the quartet.<\/p>\n

But perhaps one of the more complex characters, in terms of values and being tested, is Malian\u2019s father, the Earl of Night. Recently, someone who had just read the book said: \u201cOh you can just feel the weight <\/em>resting <\/em>on him.\u201d And last week, he got a mention again in Criag’s comment on my “Evolution of Character” companion post, here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I have to say that both comments pleased me very much because they were so much in tune with how I hoped that the Earl would come across: not as a straightforward personality, but as a man caught between opposing forces and conflicting values\u2014between his personal inclination and difficult circumstances. The responsibility of leading not just his own House of Night but the Derai Alliance itself through those circumstances does rest very much on him\u2014which means that his personal inclinations are tested, sometimes even severely tested. Perhaps because of this, he is not necessarily an easily likeable man\u2014but I hope that you will find him an interesting one!<\/p>\n

Big ideas, big story, characters under pressure\u2014or a tale of adventure, battles and hunts? I love stories that weave the two elements together, so it\u2019s probably not surprising that I have tried to ensure The Heir of Night<\/em> works at both levels.<\/em><\/p>\n

With the mass market edition out in the UK,\u00a0 I hope that even more readers will take the opportunity to decide for themselves whether adventurous, character-driven epic fantasy in the classic style is for them. And hoping even more that they will decide that it is! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

And here’s that cover again, in all it’s glory!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The mass market edition of The Heir of Night, The Wall of Night Book One, complete with the awesome new cover (featured left) is officially ‘out’ in the UK today–and with publication of\u00a0 The Gathering of the Lost, The Wall of Night Book Two, just three months away, this feels like an incredibly exciting ‘place\/space’ […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-about-my-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11232"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11232\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11258,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11232\/revisions\/11258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}